Central Japan · Yamanashi · Fujiyoshida

Yoshida Fire Festival

吉田の火祭り

Every 26 and 27 August, at the foot of Mount Fuji, rows of three-metre torches turn the streets of Fujiyoshida into a river of fire in the festival of Kitaguchi Hongū Fuji Sengen Shrine and Suwa Shrine.

26–27 August 2027

301 days away

Every year, 26 August, for 2 days

Future dates: 26 August 2027 · 26 August 2028 · 26 August 2029

Origin

According to Kitaguchi Hongū Fuji Sengen Shrine, the festival was originally the annual rite of its subsidiary Suwa Shrine and is now held by both shrines as the Chinkasai, the “fire-calming festival”. A town register of 1572 already records a “procession road” for the portable shrines, so the festival is at least 450 years old. Why the fires are lit is explained in several ways: a local legend that the townspeople once lit masses of torches so that pursuers would mistake them for a great army and leave the fleeing Suwa deity in peace; the myth of the enshrined goddess Konohanasakuya-hime giving birth in the midst of flames; and the wish to calm the eruptions of Mount Fuji. It was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan in 2012. It is often described as the festival that closes the Fuji climbing season, but the shrine points out that it holds a separate closing ceremony for the mountain on 10 September, and that the fire festival is not that.

What to look for

The highlight is the night of the 26th. Once the portable shrines reach their overnight resting place, great bamboo-shoot-shaped torches about three metres tall are stood up one after another along the street from the Kanadorii gate to the shrine and set alight, and the town becomes a “sea of fire”. There have traditionally been around 80 torches, but in recent years the number has grown to about 120. There are two portable shrines: the O-Myōjin-san, shaped like a shrine hall, and the O-Yama-san, a shrine about a tonne in weight shaped like Mount Fuji. Young bearers carry the O-Yama-san roughly and sometimes deliberately drop it to the ground, said to stir the power of the deity and calm the turbulent mountain. On the night of the 27th, when the shrines return to the grounds of Suwa Shrine, people holding sprigs of pampas grass follow them around a ritual ground called Takamagahara, praying for safe childbirth, children and good health — which is why the second day alone is sometimes called the Susuki Matsuri, the Pampas Grass Festival.

How to watch

According to the shrine, sparks sometimes shower onto the rooftops on the night of the 26th, though it is said the festival has never once caused a fire. There is also a custom of taking home the charred embers of the torches as charms against fire and for safe childbirth, but the shrine warns that this has its own etiquette and is not without danger, so anyone who does it does so at their own risk. Locally, families who have had a death in the year since the last festival still keep away from it.

If you go

The torches line the roughly two-kilometre street from the Kanadorii gate, in front of Mt. Fuji Station on the Fujikyu line, up to the shrine. According to Fujiyoshida City’s official tourist guide, in both 2025 and 2026 the portable shrines set out at 5 p.m. on the 26th, the torches were lit as the shrines reached their resting place at the Kamiyoshida Community Center at around 6:30 p.m., and the torches began to be taken down at 10 p.m. Times can change from year to year, so check that year’s schedule in the tourist guide. On both days roads along the procession route are closed to vehicles, and the guide also publishes maps of the closures. In 2026 the Fujikyu line ran extra trains on the 26th, and the guide encouraged visitors to come by train to avoid traffic jams. The shrine says temporary parking is provided at festival time.

Where

Kitaguchi Hongū Fuji Sengen Shrine

Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi

Open in maps

Sources

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